


The Bone Queen's Consort, part II

by Misswhy



Series: The Bone Queen's Consort [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pack Family, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 12:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misswhy/pseuds/Misswhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gives the sheriff a week in his whiskey daze. Then he breaks in, pours everything down the drain, removes all the empty bottles and starts cleaning the house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bone Queen's Consort, part II

II

He gives the sheriff a week in his whiskey daze. Then he breaks in, pours everything down the drain, removes all the empty bottles and starts cleaning the house. Around afternoon, when the sheriff staggers out from his bedroom, still in yesterday's stained clothing, Derek has dinner ready. They eat together, not talking.

*

Both the sheriff and he pretend not to notice that Scott sneaks in through the window in Stiles' room and sleeps in his bed.

He's always gone before the morning.

*

It's two weeks later, when John is about to leave for work for the first time since- since everything, that he says to Derek, “You know, I do have a guest room. The couch can't be good for your back, super-healing or not.”

Derek is still sleepy and slow and he blames this for his complete surprise at John's offer. He's not sure if he manages to keep it off his face, but John is kind enough to pretend not to see.

John hasn't touched alcohol since the day Derek killed his stash, but he can tell that he wants to. He'd have to be blind not to see how much John wants to.

“Can I have friends over,” he asks, going for ironic, meaning it all the same.

John makes a sound that once could have been the start of laughter, says, “Sure. Just don't wreck the house,” and leaves for work.

When he comes back ten hours later, clearly exhausted, face a shut-down mask, Lydia is bullying Scott and Isaac through their chemistry homework while Derek is cooking. The rest of the pack wanted to come too, even Jackson, but Derek had put his foot down, not wanting to overwhelm John. Maybe in time, and it surprises him how wistful that thought makes him.

*

Scott and John can't look at each other at first.

Derek thinks of Laura and him looking at the burnt-out house, still smoking, smelling horrible like roasted pig and how they couldn't even look at each other. If they did they would drown in each others' misery and grief and they could not afford that weakness.

For John, it's not a weakness. When he reenters the kitchen after having changed out of his uniform, he puts a hand on Scott's shoulder, pulls him out of his chair and into what would no doubt have been a bone-crushing hug if Scott hadn't been a werewolf.

“Good to see you, Scott,” he says, voice rough. Scott buries his head in John's shoulder and holds on for a long time. When Scott starts shaking, John just holds on tighter, says _it wasn't your fault, Scott. None of you. I don't blame you._

When Scott finally sits back down, his face is blotchy and his eyes are red. Isaac moves a little closer, close enough for his leg to touch Scott's under the table. Derek brings him a glass of water, puts his hands on his shoulders, copying John. He stands there, until Scott's breathing has returned to normal and Lydia has started grilling him about his homework again.

Derek goes back to making lasagne, releasing a breath he didn't know he was holding.

*

“I'm not smart enough for this,” Scott says, head on the table and his school books. The food is packed away, John has gone to bed early. Derek is doing the dishes.

“Calling yourself stupid is not making your homework any easier, so stop it. It's counter productive.” Lydia says. “You used to get average grades before werewolves took over you life. When I'm done with you, they will be _good_ .”

“Your Spanish grades are still the top of the class,” Isaac says.

“I _speak_ Spanish, it doesn't count!”

“Of course it counts,” Derek says.

“You think I'm stupid. You've said so, repeatedly.”

“You're a teenager and you were in love. I think all teenagers in love are stupid. Your plan to poison Gerard Argent was very smart.” Derek says.

“I used you, you mean.” Scott says, raising his head from the table, staring at him.

“Maybe I deserved it.” Derek says, turning back to the dishes, effectively closing the conversation.

*

Derek is back at the railway lair to get the last of his things; some clothing and a couple of paperbacks. This is where Peter finds him.

“Really, Derek? Your little friend walks into disaster with his eyes wide open, surprise to exactly no one. _Are you done playing house yet?”_

“I should kill you for Laura.” Derek says. “Again.” He remembers her dead eyes, how her smell had already disappeared in favor of the sick smell of rot.

He isn't weak anymore. He doesn't need Peter. He _doesn't_.

“You killed them. All of them, our whole _family_.” Peter says from the shadows. “You and your teenage hormones and your _stupidity_. I should kill you for that.”

“Do it, then.”

Peter is silent, stays in the shadows.

“Yeah, I didn't think so. Peter Hale, you are no longer part of my pack. You are an omega. I don't care where you go, but if you kill, I will know and I will come for you. I will let _Lydia_ come for you.”

Peter disappears into the shadows.

*

The pack starts to come to dinner once a week. They eat and they talk and it isn't horrible.

There are are moments when it feels as if Stiles has just left the room for a minute, gone to the bathroom or to get a book in his room and that he'll be back, any minute now, to start bickering with Scott and Jackson about lacrosse or harass Derek good-humored about the way he trains his betas, about his taste in music and clothes, about Derek being this close to hobo-status and where does he even do his laundry and dude, where the hell do you _shower,_ I know you were raised by wolves, but there got to be a _limit_ -

Any minute now.

These moments are both the best and the worst.

*

John seems wholly unsurprised when the sleeping lump on the couch is switched from Derek to Isaac.

Now that Isaac isn't terrified all the time, Derek is starting to realize how much heart the kid has. He has no idea what to do with this knowledge. It hurts to see him trying to be a good kid in the middle of all the madness and Derek doesn't know if he hopes that Isaac will lose that heart as soon as possible or if he can keep it a little longer.

Like with Scott's sleeping habits, John doesn't comment on it. He seems to understand how easily Isaac will be scared away. He just starts making coffee enough for three in the morning and that's enough.

*

Derek sometime wonders what it would be like if Stiles was here too, in the empty space on the couch next to John as they watch a game, filling the silence with his constant commentary, with his laughter.

But not very often. Derek has learned the hard way to steer his mind away from the 'what if's.

*

It's been three months when Scott tells him that the two of them are going to clean out Stiles' room.

“Stiles and I, we did this back when his mother died. He didn't want his dad to do it.”  
  
They pack everything in boxes, mark them 'Stiles' and put them in the basement, next to the boxes marked 'Mom'.

*

It's around this time the shock starts to fade from John's eyes, to be replaced with the emptiness of his everyday life without his son, that even the the pack-dinners and Isaac and Derek living with him can't negate.

Derek has never been good with words, not this kind of words. Instead he decides it's time to start renovating Hale House.

He doesn't ask John for help or advice, but he does leave the papers all over the kitchen table, the architect drawings, the offers from the different tradesmen, insurance papers.

It's enough. After all, Stiles didn't get his curiosity from strangers, nor his inability to not meddle.

*

It's in the middle of construction work, amongst the innards of the half torn-down house, that Scott finally bares his throat in honest submission. It's surprisingly anticlimactic, but the symbolism of it all rings true; here in the middle of literately building something new from the ashes.

They don't talk about it, but the moment the rest of the pack sees them, they know. Derek can feel their relief and satisfaction as they all take turn touching Scott, knocking shoulders together, giving him hugs, getting their scent all over him.

*

The official investigation is finally over, but John refuses to have a memorial service. They never found a body, of course and John says he isn't ready yet. Derek can't find it in him to fight him. John will come to the inevitable conclusion in his own time: Stiles is never coming home.

*

The pack is getting strong. Stronger everyday and it's joy to watch, makes Derek fiercely proud.

It's a strange feeling.

The thing is, having a town on their territory means responsibilities. And Stiles had asked him to take care of them, all of them.

So Derek does.

*

The first time he follows John into the station out of his own free will, it's a missing child-case. No suspicion of foul play, simply a father and a mother taking their eyes off their daughter at the wrong moment on a bird-watching trip in the woods.

The girl is five years old and it's getting dark and the nights are cold and the search party is getting lost.

Derek catches the girl's scent off her parents' clothes from across a crowded room in the station were they are waiting for news, any news. They are holding hands even in their distress and Derek has to look away.

He picks up her scent at the lake where her mother last saw her. An hour later he's helping Katie down from the tree she's gotten stuck in, scared of an imaginary bear, too scared to call out in case the bear would hear her. She's asleep in his arms before he reaches the squad car where John is waiting. He's smiling.

*

The next time it's a rape. Derek brings in the rest of the pack. Erica is the one talking to the girl and getting the scent of the assailant.

Three hours later they are standing outside his apartment, watching him drink beers in front of the TV. The pack are flexing their claws in barely contained fury and Derek can feel his own fangs wanting to emerge.

He takes a deep breath and silence them with a sharp movement of his hand. Then he calls John.

*

A month and three more arrests later, John places a deputy badge in front of Derek as they are cleaning away their dinner plates.

“This could be yours, if you want it.”

Derek stares at him. He's pretty sure his mouth is hanging open.

“Why,” he manages to ask.

“Because you could be very, very good at it. You have good instincts and an even better nose. Because I've seen you with your kids and with the Argents and you're turning into one heck of leader. And because the way you've been helping me – well, it's a two-way street.”

Derek looks away, says, “Stiles asked me to look out for you.”

“And if he could have, he would have asked me the same thing.” He pushes the badge closer to Derek, taps it twice. “Think about it,” John says and leaves the room, but not without putting a hand on Derek's shoulder.

*

It will make him visible, but it will also mean security for the pack. People know it was him who'd found the little girl. Being well-liked and having some power - they will be protected. And he will be able to have John's back.

Despite everything, he doesn't have a criminal record. He has a GED. There's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do it.

He will have to move back into his own house; he can't live under the same roof as his boss, but he was going to do that anyway. Eventually.

*

_"Hi Derek. Could you come by sometime this evening?”_

He is on his way home from the training academy and it's late and he's tired, but John's voice is heavily slurred and Derek immediately makes an U-turn.

It's not the date of Stiles' disappearance, he'd let his guard down. But it is coming up, the six months-date. Next week, but on a Wednesday. Not a day to get drunk. This is Saturday. A perfect day to get drunk. He should have seen it coming.

“ _I wish he had trusted me enough to tell me. I felt like I didn't know my own son anymore, I didn't know what to believe. He- he thought I was disappointed in him, angry at him, and I was. But knowing what I know now - I'm so proud of him and I'll never get to tell him.”_

When Derek finally gets to the house, John's passed out in the office that used to be Stiles' room. Derek carries him to bed and pours out the whiskey .

*

Derek is going through Stiles' things in the basement. It's been almost a year and he's forgetting him.

His smell, the sound of his laughter, the exact placement of the moles on his face.

Derek's pack are doing so well these day, in school, at full moons, all the time in between. Boyd will step up as Alpha, Scott and Isaac will take care of John. Lydia and Jackson have each other. Erica and Lydia reign the school together and Boyd and Erica are in love and painfully shy about it. Isaac is still living with John and is working for Dr. Deaton. He's smiling more.

It will hurt to leave them, but they are strong enough now. They don't need him anymore.

John has taught Derek how to take care of people, to see what they need and how to give it to them, in a shape that they will accept. He will be disappointed that Derek didn't take the life John offered him, but of all people, Derek knows he will understand.

*

Derek stands in the ancient graveyard, the moon high and full above him. Everything is silent.

He roars out his challenge

 

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, I don't have a beta = there will be errors. Point them out and get cookies :)


End file.
